to wear the green carnation
by lastofthecrimelords
Summary: sherlock holmes, aged fourteen, tries to come out to his family. it doesn't really go as planned.


"Excuse me, please," Sherlock said, loudly enough (he hoped) to catch his family's attention. "I have an important announcement to make."

All eyes turned to him.

It was half-past eight in the evening, and all five of the Holmeses – Mother, Father, Grandmother, Mycroft, and Sherlock himself – were currently demolishing the last scraps of one of Sherlock's spectacular culinary disasters. They had a rota – each member of the family had to cook for one week, and once the seven days were up, the job moved on to the next person. This week, it was Sherlock's turn. He'd made an omelette. Or he'd tried, anyway. The resulting meal was more of a sort of yellowish, eggy soup, with lumps of cheese and unidentifiable brown and black blotches floating around in it.

"What is it, dear?" Violet Holmes asked warily. Sherlock's announcements rarely consisted of good news.

"You'd better not have got anyone pregnant," added Sigerson.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Sherlock snapped. "Of course I haven't."

"Well, out with it then," his grandmother said irritably, swallowing a lump of raw egg and cheese with a visible effort. "Don't keep us all waiting."

"I," Sherlock announced, "am gay."

For a moment, there was no sound but for the clink of Sigerson Holmes placing down his wine glass, and Mycroft's barely-audible sigh. Then his mother let out a tinkling, artificial laugh. "Don't be silly, dear," she said, picking up her knife and fork again.

"I am _not _being silly," Sherlock insisted.

"You're not gay," said Sigerson, flatly.

"I am!"

"You're not."

"How would you know?"

"Darling, no one's certain at your age," Violet said. Finally giving up on her dinner, she pushed as much of it as she could to the side of her plate, before laying her cutlery down neatly. "It'll be a phase. We all go through it."

"It really _isn't_," Sherlock said.

"Your mother's right," his grandmother agreed. "You'll grow out of it. And not a moment too soon, if you ask me."

Hopes beginning to fade, Sherlock addressed his last chance of support. "Mycroft?"

"Pass the salt," said Mycroft, without looking up.

Sherlock passed it, shoved back his chair with a screech and stamped out of the room, leaving behind an awkward silence.

"Puberty," Violet sighed at last. Everyone nodded knowledgeably.

* * *

"Much as I think it's excellent that you're finally working through your teenage sexuality crisis," Mycroft said to him at some point during the next week, in the sort of voice that meant he didn't think it was excellent at all, "I would, however, advise you to stop talking about it quite so openly. It upsets Mummy dreadfully."

"I don't see why," Sherlock responded mulishly.

"Now, I know you may not be fully capable of comprehending everyday social graces – "

"I'm fully capable of comprehending them. I just don't bother to follow them."

" – _but,"_ Mycroft pressed on, "you really must try to be more – what's the word? Diplomatic. Perhaps save the sexuality crises and so on for after dinner?"

"Puts you off your food, does it?"

"And this antagonistic attitude you have adopted recently…it would do you a world of good if you were to abandon that as well. It's ill-mannered and distasteful, especially for someone of your breeding."

"Mycroft, you can be a right bastard sometimes, you know that?"

"Oh, and try not to be quite so childish," his brother added, unperturbed.

"Kindly fuck off and die," Sherlock said, and went into the kitchen. At the sound of his entry, his father turned to him, closing the fridge door. He had a ladle in his hand. "Ah, there you are, Sherlock," he said. "I was just about to make dinner. What would you like?"

"Cocks," Sherlock responded, diplomatically.

"I was thinking lasagne, myself," said Sigerson Holmes.

Sherlock stormed out of the kitchen again.

* * *

"There!" Violet said, beaming. "She was _lovely, _wasn't she, Sherlock?"

Sherlock shrugged. He wasn't really listening. For the last ten minutes, his mind had been thoroughly taken up with thoughts of a new experiment he planned to carry out as soon as he had a free moment, involving nitrogen oxide, a clean burette and a length of cat gut. He was still trying to work out how he'd manage to get hold of the last item. That Persian next door was a thoroughly unpleasant animal, but would that be crossing the moral event horizon…?

"She was, wasn't she?" Violet implored, this time addressing her husband.

"Oh, yes. Very lovely," Sigerson agreed. "Gorgeous figure, as well."

Violet frowned. "That wasn't really what I meant, darling."

"Wasn't it?" Sigerson said vaguely.

Violet shot him a frosty look, then turned back to her younger son. "You wouldn't mind, would you, Sherlock?"

"Mind what?" Sherlock said, thoughts still occupied.

"If she came to stay here, of course! Just for a week or so, in the summer…I mean, she seemed like such a nice girl, and perhaps you two might, I don't know…_hit it off?" _She widened her eyes significantly.

The prospective exchange student had left over two hours ago, but somehow everyone seemed to be gushing over her still. He couldn't see _why. _After all, there was nothing particularly remarkable about her. Aesthetically pleasing according to commonly held standards of beauty, but in every other aspect totally average. And seeing as she barely spoke English, it wasn't as though she'd be a particularly good conversationalist anyway.

"Thanks for the thought," Sherlock said acidly, "but she isn't really my type."

"What's wrong with her?" Sigerson asked.

"Well, she has breasts, for a start."

"I'd noticed," his father said.

"And a vagina," Sherlock added cheerfully.

"Really, dear," said Violet, "not at the table."

"She can come to stay if she wants, Mummy. I really couldn't care less."

"That's not nice, Sherlock."

"Since when have I ever been _nice?" _Sherlock retorted. "Anyway, if I'm not a fool, which I'm not, but you are, she displayed clear signs of being a chain-smoker, as well as a serious case of kleptomania and most likely the late stages of asymptomatic gonorrhoea. And even if none of that were true I would still not be interested in her, Mummy, because I happen to be _gay._ Homosexual. Queer. I play for the other team! I bowl from the pavilion end! I wear the green carnation! Essentially, I'm not interested, nor shall I ever be interested, in girls, especially not _that _kind of girl, and quite frankly you should stop cowering away from the truth and face up to it, because it isn't going to change."

There was a bit of a silence.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said eventually, standing, "we need to talk."

* * *

"What did you want to talk about?" Sherlock questioned, sinking into the nearest armchair. He reached for the box of assorted biscuits that his father kept hidden under the seat and opened it, biting into a stale gingersnap.

"Make a deduction." Mycroft also took a seat, facing his brother with an icy expression. "Considering your previous little speech and the recent events that led up to it, what do you imagine the topic of this particular conversation might be?"

"I don't want to talk to you about it."

"You haven't got anyone else," Mycroft told him bluntly.

From the dining room, there came the sound of subdued voices, his father's clipped and on edge, his mother's wavering. Sherlock listened to the scrape of plates, the clink of cutlery, and shook his head. It wasn't an attempt at denial, more a gesture of resignation.

"You're not going to try and change me." It wasn't a question.

"Obviously not."

"Can you talk to our parents about it, then?" Sherlock asked, now scoffing the biscuits at an alarming rate.

"I shan't yet," Mycroft replied, eyeing the biscuits hopefully. "As I mentioned before, it's a rather delicate subject to bring up in front of one's parents. How did you know about the kleptomania, incidentally?"

"She stole one of Father's blown-glass spinning tops from the cabinet in the hall. And I saw a jewelled letter-opener sticking out of her pocket when she left." Sherlock took pity on him and passed over a chocolate Bourbon. "Have you come up with a plan to stop me from talking about The Issue in front of Mummy yet?"

"Actually, I was considering setting you up with my newest secretary instead. I'm sure you'll agree that's a far more sensible solution. A charming individual, with – I am given to understand – sufficient brainpower and patience to put up with you. I hope you're satisfied."

"To be brutally frank," Sherlock said, "I'm not. Let me guess, she's some blonde bimbo fresh out of college but with a mediocre level of intelligence, and you're hoping to convert me to "normalcy" with the help of Kylie or Lucy or whatever the hell her name is – "

"_His _name," Mycroft said, "is Richard Morton. He's a chemistry graduate from Cambridge. I've told him a certain amount about you – and yes, your many negative aspects were also covered, so no need to worry about that – and he certainly seems keen for an introduction. How would you feel about that?"

There was a pause.

Sherlock handed Mycroft another biscuit.


End file.
